Documenting the activities of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an unregistered foreign agent

Nonprofit Corporations Registered with FARA

The Council on American Relations is a network of related non-profit corporations, including 501c4 and 501c3 corporations, as well as the for-profit corporations Greater Washington LLC of Delaware and the Zahara Corporation. The fact that this network of corporations includes non-profit corporations should not qualify as an exemption under the FARA statute, which only allows for an exemption under 613(e): “Any person engaging or agreeing to engage only in activities in furtherance of bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or of the fine arts.”

Because the CAIR network of corporations are engaged in public education on political policy issues, political advocacy and lobbying activities, they do not qualify under any of those categories. Furthermore, other non-profit corporations have set a precedent by complying with FARA registration requirements. In a cross-search of both the FARA online database of active registrants for the years 2005-2009, and the Guidestar.org online database of non-profit organizations, we found that the following organizations are both FARA registrants and non-profit corporations:

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Center for Security Policy Letter Campaign

Foreign Funding

CAIR qualifies under FARA as a foreign agent in part because it has taken cash, loans, pledges of donations and real property from foreign principals. View all source documents at the Foreign Funding Transactions page.